The world’s largest e-commerce firm is looking at buying as well as leasing logistics property in Europe as uncertainty in investment markets presents a buying opportunity for long-term players.
“We are looking to purchase logistics and industrial properties as well,” Amazon Head of Global Strategic Properties Northern Europe Tudor Baidoc told the audience at Bisnow’s UK Industrial and Logistics Conference on Thursday at 10 Union Street.
“I think that’s positive for the market, because it’s a bit grey out there.”
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Baidoc said the UK and Germany are Amazon’s core northern European markets. Beyond that, it has a series of site selection criteria that it uses to make sure it can deliver to its customers as quickly as possible.
A lot of those criteria haven’t changed much in recent years, proximity to major conurbations and access to labour being the main priorities.
But access to power is a growing issue for the company, a sentiment echoed by other owners at the event. As industrial occupiers require more power for automation and fleet charging, an increasingly stretched power grid is becoming a major determining factor.
UK industrial investment hit a three-year high of £10B in 2025, Montagu Evans data shows.
But 2026 got off to a slow start, with Q1 volumes of £1.9B down 15% on the prior year. And things slowed further as the war in Iran created uncertainty among investors.
Yields have risen 25 basis points to around 5%, Montagu Evans partner Tom Paton-Smith said. Core capital is largely sitting on the sidelines, apart from some local authority pension schemes looking to buy into the multi-let industrial sector.
With UK interest rates higher than those in continental Europe, capital is more likely to look across the Channel right now, QuadReal Senior Vice President of International Real Estate Thomas Blangy said.
But the large gap between prime and secondary yields offers an opportunity for investors to buy and refurbish older properties, improve their sustainability credentials and amenities, and then re-lease them at higher rents and sell them at a higher value.
And the lack of new development in the sector over the past five years, which is an ongoing phenomenon, will continue to support rental growth, panellists said.
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